Washington Township teachers' union holds job action as a new date for contract negotiations is set

While the negotiation committees for the school board and the Washington Township Education Association will meet on Nov. 2 to attempt to work out conditions for a new teacher contract, job actions in the schools have already begun to affect students and staff.

For the job action, members of the union have halted any unpaid work. Activities for which teachers receive stipends are continuing unaffected, but voluntary events — such as chaperoning last week’s homecoming dance — are out of the question. As a result, the Powderpuff Football game has been postponed until December. Administrators have been called on to fill in at events like the dance.

“At this point the job action really is affecting us because it’s really pushing us back,” said Kevin Levy, a senior at the high school. “It’s not the senior year that we’ve been waiting for.”

Levy, who attends almost every board of education meeting and is embedded in homecoming and class activities, said seniors are bearing the brunt of the job actions.

“Once we start getting closer to big events and start getting closer to senior trip and this isn’t resolved, there’s going to be a major backlash,” Levy said. “No one really understands why job actions are in place. It doesn’t help the teachers at all and gives them really no leverage.”

School board President Stephen Altamuro said he hasn’t heard of any specific examples of job actions affecting student life, but he doesn’t think it is the wisest move for the union.

“It’s not right,” Altamuro said. “It’s a shame and I don’t think that’s the solution. The solution is to come up with logical arguments on why you want what you want and how we can get there.”

Levy said that he has teachers who want to be able to stay after school to help students, but can’t because of the job action.

“That’s the community in the high school, you can’t go against the union,” he said. “To some extent we understand, but at what point does our education comes first?”

Numerous requests for comments by WTEA President Robert Scardino about the job actions were not returned.

Scardino did say in an email that both sides will meet Nov. 2 without a fact-finder or mediator in an effort to make some headway on the biggest hurdles in the negotiations, Scardino said.

The teacher’s union has gone more than two years without a new contract. The salary guide and automatically-scheduled pay raises have been the sticking point between the negotiations so far.

Altamuro said he hopes to be able to make some progress in the discussions.

“The best case scenario is that we resolve contract, but I would say realistically that it would be to get the numbers of the [salary] percentage increase and get some kind of agreement on that,” Altamuro said. “We have to figure out how to fund that and what amount we’re going to give as an increase. That’s where our biggest problem is right now.”

Due to state restrictions that only allow a 2 percent increase in the school budget, Altamuro said offering the teachers anything additional was challenging.

“Since teachers and salaries are 85 percent of our budget, it’s difficult to offer much more than that. Our hands are tied by the state, but they want significantly more than that,” Altamuro said. “I don’t know how we can get the number we’re looking for.”

If negotiations stall, both parties will move on to a fact-finding session where a third party will present realities and suggestions about the situation. That meeting, however, is not binding.

Board member Andrew Walter, who sits on the board’s negotiations committee alongside Paul Marino and Kurt Snyder, sees the agreement to meet as a step in the right direction.

“It’s a good sign that both sides want to get this done, sit down and hear each other out,” Walter said, “It’s a start to putting something together that works for both of us.”